Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl was once an open-air stadium for College Football and home to the exhibition game of the same name. It would have been lost to the sinking mire that Miami has become, or engulfed by the rampaging Foreverglades if not for the efforts of its residents; Miami's Pirates. History Pre-War The Orange Bowl, originally the Burdines Stadium, was built in the 1930s. It hosted home games for the University of Miami's football team along with the city's minor league baseball team and professional football team. The special Orange Bowl game was played at the stadium every year between 1938-1995, with the stadium being renamed for the game in 1959. It diminished in prominence starting in the late 1980s as some of the teams tied to it moved to newer facilities and was actually set to be demolished in 2008, but was saved by community outcry because of its status as a landmark. The War The stadium suffered some superficial damage when the city was bombed. It served as a rallying point for some survivors and rescue efforts by the remnants of local governments before the complete breakdown of order. Post-War When the water levels rose, the stadium was eventually just over halfway submerged. It remained as an empty cauldron amidst a mildly irradiated saltwater marsh, home to the dead. In the 2100s, it became a stopping grounds for Rafters on their way to and from the various tower towns, with some electing to stay and operate it as a bazaar where Rafters, pirates, and travelers could do business. When the pirates grew more numerous in the late 2180s; due to an influx of Swampers and tower exiles, they pushed out a lot of the Bowl's regulars and coerced the vendors into staying and working for them. There were several outbreaks of mass violence and near-destruction of the Bowl between 2180-2200, prompting a coalition of the most powerful Kaptains to lay down a bare minimum of law and order to preserve the Bowl for their own use. With this limited stability, the Bowl grew with different pirates expanding the limited scaffolding the Rafters had created for their docks. Culture The Orange Bowl is an anarchic pirate haven. It's louder and more boisterous than New Orleans per square foot. There are various diversions from the copious booze and chems, to games of football and jai alai, pit fights, bars and whore, and general revelry. Economy Because they're unwelcome among the tower dwellers or the tribes of the Foreverglades, and because Vieux Carré is a hell of a long way away; the Orange Bowl is where most of Miami's pirates spend their loot. There's a permanent population of vendors, a timid breed of pirate who operate their little shops on behalf of the powerful kaptains. Rafters also come with some frequency, though only the most heavily armed risk the trip as the pirates offer no safe passage to or from the Bowl. There's also a flophouse, a few bars, and a brothel. Government The Orange Bowl is governed by the most powerful of the various Pirate Kaptains. There's no formal election process or a limit to the number of seats on the body; once a Kaptain has a large enough krew and fleet, and has cultivated the right kind of reputation they can simply demand their seat. If none of the other Kaptains object, they're in; if there's any resistance, they're denied. Of course the applicant has the choice of attempting to destroy anyone who prevented their ascent, eliminating resistance is a legitimate approach. The danger of this is that some Kaptains on the council have formed blocs, so attacking one member of a bloc is as good as attacking all of them. The Kaptains don't so much enact laws and regulations as they do protect the businesses at the Bowl. There's no law regarding violence, fraud, theft, nor anything else that doesn't endanger the Bowl or its vendors. Layout The Orange Bowl consists of the Pre-War stadium, fortified and buttressed with scrap materials, and a web of platforms and docks built around it to form a shanty town and harbor. It's less than ten miles west of the Neversink and Freedom Tower as the crow flies, though every mile is packed with ruins and debris. The towers of A1A are further east, further from the Bowl than the western towers, but there's more open water in between them. Relations *Aquaculture: The pirates have no idea the underwater utopia exists, a state of affairs the Aquaculturians prefer. They keep tabs through the efforts of an agent of SPECTRUM who has ingratiated himself with the Rafters who do business there. *Neversink: The pirate like to harass the tower dwellers and the Rafters who trade there. Compared to the towers in old Miami Beach, the downtown towers are closer to the Bowl, more isolated in general, and can bring less defenders to bear. Category:Places Category:Communities